Cliff Stritch, CEO of Infinite Graphics in Minneapolis is a precision imaging company that makes textures, like the texture of a flat-screen TV or of sandpaper, Thursday November 7, 2013. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Cliff Stritch has a hard time explaining what exactly his company, Infinite Graphics, does. To say it manufactures “surfaces” is not enough. To really know, you have to go below the surface.

And doing so reveals a company that has evolved over the years, adapting to the changing demands of its high-tech business clients.

From the name, “people usually think we’re in the graphic arts business,” Stritch said. But you won’t find their work on billboards or on the side of a moving van or in a glossy brochure.

Their multimillion-dollar digital laser printers primarily turn out glass plates used in the manufacture of semiconductors — known in the industry as phototools. The patterns on the phototools are etched using a photo-lithography process.

But lately, the company’s resources are increasingly devoted to printing molds for microscopic 3-D structures used on consumer products. You can’t see or feel them, but there are 3-D surfaces in such things as certain waterproof fabrics and anti-reflective touch screens on electronic devices.

“There are these 3-D structures on material that people feel all the time,” Stritch said.

During its 43-year run, the Minneapolis-based company has shifted its focus several times to adapt to changing technology.

It began in the early days of computing and computer engineering.

Stritch was working part time as a software programmer at St. Paul’s West Publishing in the late 1960s while he attended Hamline University.

In 1969, three of his co-workers — John Rome, Myron Greenberg and Bob Larson — approached him about joining a new software company they were launching called Man/Machine Interface.

“They said, ‘We’re leaving to start our own business and we want you to be our first employee,’ ” Stritch recalled.

It took some convincing, but eventually, Stritch signed on.

A couple of years later, the three founders parted ways, leaving Man/Machine Interface to Rome. As part of their arrangement, Larson took over Infinite Graphics, a side business the three men owned.

The small startup primarily printed architectural and engineering graphics — blueprints, for example — for local firms.

“It was in such an embryo state,” Larson recalled. “Whether it was going to be a viable business or not was a question, as it is for every startup.”

Larson again recruited Stritch, this time for a leadership role, to steady the company.

At that time, Stritch says, eight-employee Infinite Graphics was struggling for market share in a competitive industry. “If I’d had any business experience, I would have never said I’d do it.”

Rather than continuing on that course, Stritch turned the company’s attention to something he knew well: computers.

Infinite Graphics repurposed its equipment to print patterns for circuit boards on glass plates. The company’s early clients were pioneering Twin Cities tech titans like Univac and Control Data.

And it worked. By the mid-1970s, the fledgling company had outgrown its headquarters in downtown Minneapolis. Stritch moved it into a building on Lake Street along the Mississippi River. By 1981, the company had moved into the building next door, as well.

By the time the Twin Cities tech scene began to slow down, Infinite Graphics had built enough of a nationwide client list to stay afloat.

The company also had been working on in-house software to refine the mess of raw data its clients were bringing in with their orders.

It began marketing this software to its customers in 1984. This software line became so profitable that it replaced glass phototools as the company’s primary focus.

But eventually, Stritch began to see the software business as a liability.

“Almost the only companies that were succeeding in the software business were the ones with lots of money,” Stritch said. “It’s all about making the next thing.”

Stritch sold the company’s software arm in 1998, and used the proceeds to buy a photomask manufacturing operation from a company in Colorado Springs, Colo. Photomasks, a close relative of the phototools the company had been dealing in, are used in the production of semiconductors.

But when the dot-com crash of the early 2000s struck, the company closed its Colorado Springs manufacturing plant, consolidating its production in Minneapolis. It still has offices in Colorado.

While it didn’t lose any clients during the tough times that followed, it was seeing fewer orders than it had in the late 1990s.

“We had to get pretty aggressive,” Stritch said. “We were able to steal some market share from our competitors.”

In 2008, the company began exploring another new specialization — micro-textured surfaces.

“We saw that this was a market segment that appeared to be growing,” Stritch said.

One common commercial application for these structures is waterproofing. Arrays of microscopic cone structures laid over a fabric can make it “suprhydrophobic.” Depending on their shape and arrangement, Stritch says these microscopic structures have a number of applications that sound like they’re ripped from science fiction.

But they also have a number of mundane applications. For example, micro-textures may be used in optical scanning security features printed on passports and other official documents to prevent forgery.

Two of his company’s four printers are capable of producing the microscopic molds that are used by its clients to form such surfaces. However, strict non-disclosure agreements prohibit them from discussing specifics.

The 3-D printing business now accounts for 10 percent of the company’s annual revenue, but Stritch hopes that will increase.

Although the company’s production facility is staffed only 18 hours a day, the printers — each costing about $2 million — are often running 24 hours a day.

Still, Stritch estimates their facilities are only working at about 50 percent capacity, leaving plenty of room to take on more work before they would need to invest in another printer — a move that would force the business to find a new home.

“We’re out of space,” Stritch said. “To move would be very expensive. We’re going to have to, but we’re not looking to do it right now.”

Nick Woltman can be reached at 651-228-5189. Follow him on Twitter at @nickwoltman.

Nick Woltman reports on breaking news and blogs about local history. Before joining the staff of the Pioneer Press in 2013, he worked for the Bismarck Tribune in North Dakota. He lives with his wife and two cats in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood of St. Paul.

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